CR Guitars

[alan1958]

Tina , yeah ,I play a bit of guitar ,but was mainly a Bass player .....my very talented 17 yr old son has surpassed me by a long way ......swine !!!!!!!1 ( The Italia would be used mainly by him ,if it was bought )

Chris , really great post , .......but I 'm not sure if the Italia sitar is used on Blue Guitars on Disc one Beginnings , as it was to give CR the Motown sound he was after .........;
Disc 8 ;Break Another Piece Of My Heart
Disc 8 ; Come Change My World ( when he sings the chorus ............THAT'S MOTOWN ........LIKE MAGIC)
Disc 10 ; My Baby Told Me (Gospel)
Disc 10 ; Who Killed Love? ....and others
..................................without the sitar these are just great soul songs ....but add the sitar .......hey presto ........it's 1967 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[chrismiller]

Thank you for it, Alan, you're absolutely right.
Actually I'm so deep in research for this thread I've made myself a bit confused.
Come Change My World is a great song, one of my favourites from BG.

Though I still feel like I heard sitar on Disc 1, he he.

Chris

[lilybee]

Chris , really great post , .......but I 'm not sure if the Italia sitar is used on Blue Guitars on Disc one Beginnings , as it was to give CR the Motown sound he was after .........;
Disc 8 ;Break Another Piece Of My Heart
Disc 8 ; Come Change My World ( when he sings the chorus ............THAT'S MOTOWN ........LIKE MAGIC)
Disc 10 ; My Baby Told Me (Gospel)
Disc 10 ; Who Killed Love? ....and others
..................................without the sitar these are just great soul songs ....but add the sitar .......hey presto ........it's 1967 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alan, you've made me go back to Blue Guitars again!! Gospel Blues and 60-70s are my favorites!!

I don't know about the sitar, but I do know Chris picked up a lot of The Temptations in those songs!!

Just a bit before my time, but I love the early 60's Mowtown!! that's real gospel and soul...
(unlike all that rap stuff from today... )

Keep up the good work Chris, and Thanks!!

Lily

[Tina3]

alan1958 wrote:Chris , really great post , .......but I 'm not sure if the Italia sitar is used on Blue Guitars on Disc one Beginnings , as it was to give CR the Motown sound he was after .........;
Disc 8 ;Break Another Piece Of My Heart
Disc 8 ; Come Change My World ( when he sings the chorus ............THAT'S MOTOWN ........LIKE MAGIC)
Disc 10 ; My Baby Told Me (Gospel)
Disc 10 ; Who Killed Love? ....and others
..................................without the sitar these are just great soul songs ....but add the sitar .......hey presto ........it's 1967

So is this how Chris made them sound like songs from a different time.I have wondered that for a long time. All these songs I love especially My Baby Told Me and Come change My World. Wow! i have been listening to them a lot this week which happens sometimes.I put on a song and can't put it of.
Chris these posts are fanastic. Thanks for all the information
Tina

[alan1958]

[quote="lilybee"][quote="alan1958"]

I don't know about the sitar, but I do know Chris picked up a lot of The Temptations in those songs!!

Lily ,when the bass comes in on these tracks ,you can actually imagine The Temptations doing a dance formation ............must admit to doing it myself when i've got it on loud......................don't know what the other drivers must think !!!!!!!!!!!!

Tina , totally agree , My Baby Told Me and Come change My World are just amazing songs

[lilybee]

I don't know about the sitar, but I do know Chris picked up a lot of The Temptations in those songs!!

Lily ,when the bass comes in on these tracks ,you can actually imagine The Temptations doing a dance formation ............must admit to doing it myself when i've got it on loud......................don't know what the other drivers must think !!!!!!!!!!!!

Alan, You mean Like this? (wait till the middle of the song for their famous "hands roll-out")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9qUZHIp ... re=related

Now you got me scouting for (I'm A) Road Runner....

Lily

[alan1958]

Alan, You mean Like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9qUZHIp ... re=related

Now you got me scouting for (I'm A) Road Runner....

Lily

Brilliant ..........try that when you are driving !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tina3]

I never heard of these now I REALLY am showing my age Just goes to show "boy bands" are not that new an
idea

Brilliant ..........try that when you are driving !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alan I can't write I'm laughing so much if your not careful the men with the "white coats" will be coming for you
Tina

[chrismiller]

Hey everyone,

I'm back again to talk about some folk instruments as I promised. So take my hand and sink deep into the world of Black Africa and a bit of Southern USA with me...

6. Fender FR50 Resonator


7. National Model D 'Western'


Resonator guitars are very unique instruments. They lead us into the past when electric guitars didn't exist yet. The big metal cone was built into guitars to make their sound louder; not to be overwhelmed by brasses and percussions.
Resonators, however, could keep their place in music business after the invention of amps; because of their metallic sound can't compare to any other.
Playing a resonator sounds like doing very light bottleneck on a standard guitar. There's a tremolo and a buzz in each note. Actually that's why real bottleneck style often played on resonators.
Coming from Southern style country blues, as CR discovered it as well, these guitars are very popular among blues musicians; mainly played with a slide. However, fine bottleneck country music can be played with them, too. (Only it needs a lot of skill...)
Their other name, dobro, comes from the inventor Dopyera Brothers' name. It also means 'good' in their native Slovak language.

CR used these round necked ones with single inverted-cone (Dobro-) design on Blue Guitars; these can be played lap-steel and classical style as well. They have significant F-holes on the bodies. (On the Fender, the F-holes have the same shape as the letter F in the brand name.)
CR owns a vintage model from National D-series that can be seen among BG's photographs. However, on The Road to Hell and Back DVD, Sylvain plays the solo for KKK Blues on another, customized National (stars and moons shapes on the cone).
These two guitars can be equipped with body pickups for recording/playing live, but CR plays another one with electric pickup:

8. Tanglewood TBS 800 ANS


This Tanglewood beauty is electrically equipped, despite the fact dobros were invented for increase the volume. Its pickup is very critical to design since resonators are more sensitive for audio feedback than other similar instruments. This guitar is used mainly for its distinctive tone, without any bottleneck. (Of course, anything can be done)

Ah, I talked a lot about dobros and almost missed the point... where to hear them. Many places.
Actually The Beginnings album is arranged for the Maranello and dobros. Just listen to any of the tracks and when you hear the metallic, vibrating tone in the background, that's the dobro.
CR plays dobro a lot on Country Blues as well (remember, KKK) accompanied with banjos and acoustics. But they will belong to a kinda Folk music part 2, or something like that.

Hope you still enjoy,
Chris

[Tina3]

Hi Chris!!
I have been looking forward to this post and I have to say I am not disappointed.Thankyou so much.Blue Guitars is not the same anymore.From been a superb piece of music it has turned into a masterpiece as I learn about the immense talant that's behind it.It is really great to listen to it now and be able to pick out at least some of the guitars.Please keep doing these posts as I feel I still have a lot to learn.I'm of to listen to Blue Guitars now so thanks again
Tina

[alan1958]

Great stuff Chris...keep up the good work ....and cool pics

[PAB]

Alan
I don't know anything about the price of guitars but they don't seem to that expensive -considering they appear to be a fine instrument ?
Jim

Hi,

The fact is that CR use a lot of "cheap" guitars. Good new for beginners without money.
In Belgium, the prize of the Italia Maranello Classic (it's not a ESP Chris ) is around 400€. I have the grey sparkle, a nice guitar.
The two historical Fender Strat of CR (the blue and the red-pink) are real 62's. And even today, it's expansive. But a good Mexican Strat Classic 60's (as the Chris Rea signature) is closed to a vintage and costs around 600€.
And if you pay attention to some pictures, you'll see CR with Fender Squiers and also copies .
Even the Banjo he use on stage is pretty cheap. I've got the same from England (+/-250€), it's a G. Houghton & son transformed to be played as a Tenor (4 strings).
A exception, the Acoustic guitar you can see (a lot) on the DVD Stony road: it's Guild (a Spanish I think, but maybe Chris will present it in a post) and that is not cheap.

Thank you Chris for the topic "CR Guitars".

PAb

[chrismiller]

Hey everyone,

It's so good to see you're interested that much and thank you for your lovely feedbacks. So before I leave for a short holiday I do something new to explore.

First of all, Pab, thank you for your post; I refer to it in this post and also later on.
I wrote ESP Italia since ESP is the distributor owned by Italia Guitars Company and so I found it the 'official name' of the guitar.

And if you pay attention to some pictures, you'll see CR with Fender Squiers and also copies .

Or explore the Strat Chris plays in Let's Dance on TRTHAB DVD... that's a Squier, too.

Even the Banjo he use on stage is pretty cheap. I've got the same from England (+/-250€), it's a G. Houghton & son transformed to be played as a Tenor (4 strings).

Well, I remember we've discussed it before.. I agree and disagree, either. The banjo CR plays on stage seems to me a modified vintage Fender but you got the banjo; so can I ask you to put a picture of it here? To be honest I'm a bit confused about Chris' banjos and I tell you all why:

The banjo ukulele CR used on Blue Guitars (picture in the book, that looks like a small banjo with pretty short neck) is definitely a George Houghton.
The banjo CR played in the Farewell Tour is not the same he used on BG since that one is a...

9. Tanglewood TB-18 5

Of course it's modified to 4-string Tenor as Pab pointed very well.
So some facts on banjos... first banjos were made by African slaves trying to get the sounds of African folk instruments. Then modern banjos came to public in the early 1800s; becoming very popular in America and in England as well.
There are four-, five-, and six-string banjos; the six-string's tuning and usage is the same as guitars'. The most popular playing styles are arpeggio or fast strumming with a light pick - that's what CR does.
Nowadays banjo is mainly used by country and bluegrass musicians.
I think all of you know its sound since CR plays it a lot on Country Blues, Celtic & Irish Blues and The Beginnings; not to mention the new versions of Josephine and Stainsby Girls... anyway, I try to describe it in short.
Similar to a classical guitar played with a very thin pick and with capo on 7th fret... but because of the special body construction and tuning it can't compare to any other; there's a plastic-like plunk in each and every note.
At all, it's quite easy to recognise.

10. Fender FM60E

Another proof of CR's wide knowledge of musical styles and instruments is this mandolin.
Originally mandolin comes from the lute family with six double-courses of strings but it changed a lot through times; nowadays there's a wide variety of mandolins including this special five-string electric one.
The playing style is similar to banjos and not easy. Once I played a classical lute and it's far away from guitar, you know, differently tuned strings, different chords, different way of strumming.
Depending on models, mandolins are tuned like violins or violas.
With CR this instrument's sound is close to a banjo ukulele's (tuned a bit above the standard) but brighter since it's an electric instrument with single-coil pickups.
Robert Ahwai plays the wonderful mandolin tune of Head Out On The Highway on TRTHAB. Besides, like all the instruments in this kinda 'folk' part, is mainly used on Country Blues (and Celtic & Irish Blues). It fits, however, in many styles since different kinds of mandolins are used in American, English, Irish or Greek traditional music. In pop music you can recognise its sound in R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion or Rod Stewart's classic Maggie May. Also Paul McCartney plays it in his newest track but it's so terrible I can't recall its name.

Well, it became quite long and there's still so much... Gretsch and Guild and Hofner... I'll continue soon.
But until that time, gone to the lake,
Chris

[PAB]

Hi Chris, Hi everybody,

About the Banjo, I'll will show you (after your holidays) with some pictures (but first, I've to take one pic of my own banjo, second, I've to understand how to put it on the site .
The banjo I saw (in Antwerp, I was very closed from the stage) is the same that you can see on pictures or on screen (dvd, you tube,...). He use it more as a ukulele with 4 nylon strings (but I don't know his tuning. Personnaly I learn with CGDA). Trick to recognise it: the square head and the open metallic body.
But, as you figure it, it's not the one he plays on studio (pictures in the earbook proved it).
I didn't know about the new label ESP (good thing: distribution of Italia was ).
I wait for your post with a big interest. Thank you again.
By the way, maybe you know what is the strange little (travel?) blue guitar CR plays on Stony road (DVD) when he's outside with his band.


Enjoy the holidays

PAb

[Bart]

Chris;

I can just say one thing; THANK YOU for this great addition to this site! I am astonished about the info you have and it is great to read (although I must admit not understanding everything, not playing guitars myself!). Great, hope for more!!